While investors waited for word about a meeting of leaders to discuss a possible end to the fighting in Ukraine, crude oil prices shot up nearly 2% on Wednesday.
Plus, there was a bigger-than-expected weekly drop in U.S. crude inventories. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said energy firms pulled 6.0 million barrels of crude from inventories during the week ended August 15 reported Reuters.
West Texas Intermediate crude finished up 86 cents or 1.4% to close at $63.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude closed up $1.05 or 1.6% at $66.84 a barrel.
Natural gas finished at $2.767 per MMBtu with a gain of $0.001 or 0.04%.
Wednesday was a day of gains for most Oklahoma energy stocks. SandRidge Energy led with a more than 4% jump for the day. Empire Petroleum followed with a 3% increase.